“Let’s get inside,” Robbie murmurs, and before Lance can protest, he’s shed his coat again and thrust it into Lance’s lap. Then he’s out of the truck and pushing the door closed behind him before Lance can try to give it back.

The cold is an assault the second Lance opens the door to slide out of the truck. He hurries into Robbie’s coat as a blast of wind chases him from the truck and through the snow after Robbie, to the foot of a new wooden staircase and deck attached to the old stone barn. They’re camouflaged somewhat by the snow, and so he hadn’t noticed them when they’d first pulled into the yard. Lance remembers the barn well. He and Danny used to play in the hayloft as kids, and as they got older, they still sometimes stole up there to feel more alone, often with a pile of comics. Once, with a few wine coolers pilfered from Johnny. The hayloft had always felt magically enormous—a stretch of smooth wooden flooring beneath an arched ceiling of exposed wooden beams that had reminded Lance of a capsized ship.

It was never warm up there in the winter, however, and it’s far from the cozy bedroom that Lance had let himself hope for.

At the top of the stairs is a new wooden door. The opening was crafted to match the building; it’s framed in limestone just like each of the original window openings that are rowed to either side of it. Lance glances over his shoulder and sees the same view he remembers from his youth: the twist of the creek, the sea of trees, the rocky shelves of the hillsides, and then the river, stretching so far it might as well be an ocean.

“Come on in,” Robbie says, pushing the door open with his shoulder and making a halfhearted effort to knock the snow off his boots before going inside. Lance follows.

He isn’t expecting what he finds inside.

The ceiling is the same, but it seems to glow in a way it didn’t before, like someone has conditioned and sealed every board. Other than that, the hayloft is transformed. It’s still one open space, but the floor is refinished to a brighter, even smoother gleam, and in the middle of the room is an island of countertops and cabinets—a small but modern kitchen. At the north end of the space, there’s a wall that didn’t used to be there, with a door that probably leads to a bathroom, considering Lance sees no signs of one anywhere else. On the south end, where there used to be a massive, hinged door designed for the original purpose of pulling in netfuls of loose hay, there’s now an enormous glass window filling that entire opening with just a few large panes, and the view it frames of the snowy hills beyond is stunning. In front of the window is a bed, nightstand, and low dresser.

Lance’s stare lingers on the bed, helplessly imagining Robbie lying there. Then he hastily looks around the loft again, and it strikes him that the only other place where anyone can sleep is the threadbare couch shoved up against the wall next to the kitchen. A half-built bookshelf leans against the wall next to the couch, and a black cat is curled on the arm. It opens one yellow eye to see who’s responsible for interrupting its nap.